Gaza peace talks at 'dead end' as Israel rejects permanent truce
I'm super disappointed not to see more criticism from the left over this. It's like pulling teeth.
Why is this always the reaction by AI advocates when faced with major problems in AI?
If you want to convince people that AI can potentially be a benefit and not a negative then denial is not the way.
This kind of hasty implementation of AI by tech bros should absolutely be ridiculed, since it has real world consequences.
It's not some slippery slope to prohibit people generating sexual imagary of real people without their consent. The fuck is wrong with AI supporters?
Even if you're a "horny teenager" making fake porn of someone is fucking weird and not normal or healthy.
Depending on the AI developers to stop this on their own is a mistake. As is preemptively accepting child porn and deepfakes as inevitable rather than attempting to stop or mitigate it.
AI has a bad name because it is being pursued incredibly recklessly and any and all criticism is being waved away by its cult-like supporters.
Fascists taking up use of AI is one of the biggest threats it presents and people are even trying to shrugg that off. It's insanity the way people simply will not acknowledge the massive pitfalls that AI represents.
That's a real possibility, yeah, there is no doubt that he is a Zionist. And I don't mean to speak with more certainty than it really warrants, it's more just difficult to really believe he's not coming around to the fact that the far-right "forever war" Israeli government is not only bad for the US, but even makes Israelis themselves less safe by perpetuating conflict and stoking the cycle of violence.
He is perhaps a Zionist without the stomach for ethnic cleansing that's required to fulfill that world view.
Yup, American manufacturers are still treating EVs as if they're this exotic new toy for upper-middle class people or silicon valley douche bros, rather than getting onboard with the concept of them just being a utilitarian thing that needs to be marketed to normal people.
Give me the EV equivalent of the Geo Metro and I'll buy it in a heart beat. I'm not taking out a second mortgage for a car that tries to drive itself and whatever dumb gimmicks they come up with, but I will 100% buy an affordable, practical EV designed with efficiency and economy in mind.
Any geopolitical role that Israel fulfills could easily be filled by Turkey. Israel offers very little for the US, at this point it can't even be said that they're really an ally democracy (if they ever were). It's a hyper-militaristic apartheid state.
But that's kind of my point, Israel is indeed a client of the US and, whatever you think about US hegemony, Israel shouldn't be calling the shots here in terms of the support we do or don't give them. It makes Biden look so incredibly weak to tolerate the endless slaps to the face from Netanyahu's tantrum and for them to dump money into our elections without a single Dem leader calling for a ban on AIPAC money. It makes no sense even from an imperialist perspective or a security perspective or however one wants to frame it, nevermind the clear moral depravity of continuing to send them aid.
Even Ronald Reagan withheld munitions from Israel when they indiscrimately bombed Lebanon and literally described it as a holocaust right to the Prime Minister's face. It literally took less than a half hour after that call for the Israeli PM to halt the bombing.
I despise Reagan, but if even someone as despicable as him can understand how to wield political power to bring the Israeli far-right to heel, Biden has no excuse. Which is why I think there has to be something else going on here.
It astounds me that Biden is still in thrall to this guy. He's basically deliberately sabotaging Biden's re-election chances and Biden just keeps protecting him.
I'm not for American hegemony, but the fact is that Israel is dependent on US, not the other way around. Biden needs to flex that power to shut this idiot up.
The only explanation I've been able to come up with for why Biden refuses to do anything but jerk Netanyahu off, even as Netanyahu spits in his face over and over is that Israeli intelligence has some kind of destructive kompromat on Biden. It's the only way it makes sense.
Insanity. Literally just a form of derangment. That or they're troglodytes...
It's sort of a first step into adulthood and just a way of marking a coming of age threshold as people head out into the wider world.
Most proms aren't that crazy, I think the real thing you're noticing is more the distorting effecf social media can have on any cultural tradition or practice. You're seeing people who would go overboard about anything they thought might get them attention. Kind of like people who have insane weddings, the majority of people still have totally normal weddings for the most part.
I'd say Biden is in an even worse position, his push to the far right on immigration, economics, genocide etc. because he thinks he has voters over a barrel has alienated and demoralized a lot of voters. He's quite literally to the right of Ronald Reagan at this point on so many issues, it's a tall order to ask non-conservatives to vote for him when he's literally just a Republican.
His inability to change course very well might cost him the election, and even if he does squeak out a win it guaruntees that the Democratic party will continue to see moving right and supporting genocide as the way to win elections.
US democracy is kind of a walking corpse at this point I think. People just don't want to acknowledge what the problems are and think kicking the can down the road some more will help.
And the assassination of a high ranking Iranian official.
As much as the Iranian government is authoritarian dogshit, they have been undeniably tolerant of some pretty extreme provocation from both Israel and the US.
It may be because they simply don't have the means to retaliate in kind, but the escalation of tensions in the Mid East is still clearly being stirred up entirely by the Israeli far-right government that needs there to be a "Forever Threat" in order to retain power.
Or China. He was morally selective and emblematic of how conservativism infiltrates and undermines left-wing efforts. Committed more to a prescriptive ideology than real world results.
People don't want to admit it because there's a cult of personality around him, but he let the left down.
Totalitarianism is always when the other guy does it
No...totalitarianism is an actual distinct system of governance when the state controls every aspect of daily life, communication and economic activity. It's an actual word with meaning.
It’s got an anti-war infestation that’s regularly accused of being tankies for failing to clap for the correct set of tanks.
Ok, I'm not sure if we're talking through a translator app or something, but I didn't get banned from lemmy.ml for being "pro-war" I got banned for mentioning a historical fact about the Great Leap Forward and acknowledging other atrocities like the genocide occurring in Xinjiang.
If someone is anti-war they would be against those types of things as well. Tankies instead deny that those events occurred/are occurring, that's why they're so easy to spot and how people know they're on Lemmy -- they literally can't condemn the CCP for any of the things they purport to be against when it comes to other countries, since it's counter-productive to their true goals to criticize the CCP.
By contrast an honestly anti-war progressive type of person would be just as clear-eyed about their own government as they are the CCP. That's being anti-war, you can't be selective or try to ignore degrees of difference just because it's politically uncomfortable, that's just being a mouth-piece for a specific flavor of authoritarianism.
Calmly explaining this to my US Postal Service and my Tennessee Valley Authority
Again, running public services is not the same as the state owning and controlling all businness and industry. If the Post Office was used to control speech, that would be totalitarian use of a public service.
I think you're just being obtuse at this point. You might be down for totalitarianism and the abolishment of individual freedoms, most people are not. Since, you know, having no rights kind of suck ass.
I think we’re severely underestimating the damage and impact of Russian influence, just as we’ve spent decades underestimating the damage and impact of Fox News propaganda.
And just as we'll underestimate the damage of the same garbage coming out of China.
It really is concerning that there's so little understanding and reporting about the influence campaigns and interference by the Chinese government, particular when that's much more often what users are running across these days online.
Russia really kicked the game off leading up to 2016, but China is the one running with the ball right now, and I'd say they're being much more effective with how they create and steer narratives not just in the US but across Europe and South America.
China has silently managed to gain outsized influence within corporations like Google and other social media, not just in how the services finction within their own borders but you witness how thin the divide between Google's "chinese" version and the rest of the world really is with the way they moderate political speech on their platforms. It wasn't so long ago that they "accidentally" somehow banned a bunch of chinese keywords on western versions of the platform. And even now you will get shadowbans and comment removal for criticism of the CCP on YT, though it's unclear exactly what keywords and criteria they're using. Worst part is that it's entire opaque.
It's really weird how differently the media approaches Russian and CCP influence campaigns even though at this point, as Russia declines and democracies are wiser to their tricks, none of those lessons or research are being applied towards countering and educating the public as to Chinese influence to undermine democractic institutions.
I know some Irish Republicans, Spanish Catalonians, German anti-Zionist political prisoners, and … waves hand at Poland, Hungary, and Russia
Quite a few native Europeans who would tell you differently.
Europe has some authoritarian governments, not totalitarian dictatorships that approach anywhere near the all-encompassing control of the CCP. Hungary maybe I guess, which isn't a country I'd recommend taking tech from either.
Ireland is not comparable to China though, that's an extreme reach. We're not talking about right-wing groups seeking power within democracies, we're talking about uni-party state control.
I don’t think the folks on Lemmy are at any risk of that.
Lemmy definitely has a tankie infestation already. I got banned from lemmy.ml for discussing Tiananmen and Hong Kong. Pointing out that the Great Leap Forward resulted in millions of deaths was labeled "cia misinformation" by the mods. It's a throughly compromised instance.
Lemmy users are not immune to tankie and Rusdian trolls, and thinking that they are is actually a weakness that gets exploited by those bad actors.
Imagine thinking government should dictate the terms of business and not the other way around.
Normal regulatory duties of a government are a far cry from the state having total ownership and control of business and using that control as part of a coercive campaign to suppress human rights, dissent and individual freedoms.
Whatever authoritarianism is festering in other countries, China is still on an entirely different level, it's not really a question.
Lol, it's finally sinking into his thick skull that continuing the Trump immigration policies isn't actually popular or liable to help him win.
European countries aren't totalitarian states. This isn't a question of culture, it's an issue regarding the one and only state power that's making decisions.
This is the danger of being lulled into thinking China is a normal country. Yes, there are long histories in China and are (vanishing) diverse cultures in China but that's irrelevant when talking about the actions of the state, which is all encompassing and overrules culture and diversity every time.
It's the state that owns and controls these companies, it's the state that dictates their policy and usage, and since the state is fascist and actively seeking to undermine democracy across the global, it is wise to treat the products of that state as a threat.
Israel's entire position when negotiating is essentially "We won't agree to anything until the other party we're negotiating with is destroyed forever." and then they turn around and blame Hamas for the impasse.
They can't accept any deal because they set an impossible goal for themselves that can't be reached without killing or driving out every single Palestinian.